Do you have Birmingham Hippodrome memories or memorabilia?

Birmingham Hippodrome has helped make and shape memorable theatre moments for generations of visitors. The theatre opened as the Tower of Varieties and Circus in 1899 and has a fascinating history, with many changes to the building and the kind of events taking place here over the last 115 years. From crocodile wrestling to Lion King, there have been variety acts, circus and major touring musicals performed on our stage!

The Heritage Lottery Fund are supporting this project to help tell the theatre’s story. We have recruited a fantastic team of volunteers who will be cataloguing and digitising our archive, collecting oral history interviews with performers, staff and audience members and researching the fascinating stories from the past. We are creating a digital archive website and touch table installation that will be launched in May 2016.

(image courtesy of The Library of Birmingham)

Making a donation to our archive collection

We are collecting items which help tell the story of Birmingham Hippodrome.

Our Collection Development Policy

This policy covers items the theatre will accept and the things it will not take. A full copy of the policy can be supplied on request.

What we don’t accept

Loans
Material with specific conditions attached
Items relating to other theatres
Duplicates of items already held within our archive (we will hold a maximum of three examples of an item in our archive)
Photocopied items
Items that do not belong to you

We only accept gifts

We greatly appreciate all offers of material, but please be aware that we cannot accept everything offered to us. Please don’t be offended if we turn you down – we will try to help you to find the most suitable home for your donation.
We cannot buy items from you.

It is always worth making contact rather than sending an item through the post.

Please be aware that donations sent via post cannot be returned.

All items deposited with the theatre unless stated by the owner in writing are considered as gifts.

Accepting your item

We will issue a receipt of donations called an Entry form. This records details about you and your item/s. You will be given a copy of this form for your records.
If the donation falls within our collection development policy each item will then be labelled, catalogued, scanned and stored carefully.